RoadTrip - Day 1 - continued

Dinosaur Land - In a testament to our long dormant, neanderthalic, hunting skills; we located a nest of real-life dinosaurs. And by real-life, I mean cheesy plastic replicas... but close enough. As soon as we saw it, we knew we had to stop. Also, apparently the definition of dinosaur is pretty flexible considering they also have a huge Shark, a menacing Octopus, and a 20 foot Kong.

Skyline drive - The only part of the drive we really planned out before we left was hitting at least one section of skyline drive in Virginia. If you don't know, Skyline drive is a beautiful stretch of winding mountainous road that runs atop the blue-ridge mountains in shenandoah national park. It's well worth it, if you have the opportunity.

However, not so much if you don't get there until after sunset. We arrived as the last bit of light was still lingering, so the first few miles were awesome. After that we spent the next hour or so winding up and down the mountain and dodging every deer in Virginia. They seemed happy to see us.

First Supper - After we made it out of our deer dodging mountain escapade, we were starving and ready to eat our first dinner on the road. We turned to our new friend the garmin for some delicious recommendations. After selecting what sounded like a local option with authentic cuisine we were happily on our way. 15 minutes later, we are on 1 lane dirt road in the pitch black of night. We each start taking mental inventory of the weapons we have in the minivan. The garmin seemed like our best option. We could throw it at an attacker and get revenge on the evil device that betrayed us. We finally get to the end of the "deliverance" road to find 2 houses and a trailer. Absolutely no chance of any of them being a restaurant. 50/50 they have electricity. Good job garmin.

Now we're even more hungry, so we settle on making our own dinner. We get some lunch meat and a few other supplies and have a moonlit, tailgate dinner in the Food Lion supermarket parking lot. Nothing says class like pavement and pastrami.

All nighter time - In an effort to spend more time in New Orleans we decide to drive through the night and get there as soon as we can. We drive in shifts and sleep when we need to. Although no one seems to remember who drove between 4 -5 am, so let's chalk it up to the garmin redeaming itself.

As midnight rolls around and officially ends day1, we find ourselves still in virginia, but already with a handful of good memories, with the promise of many more to come.